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Plasma TV burn in issues...

My parents bought a 50" phillips plasma around July last summer. In that time, it's receieved a pretty substantial amount of use on their part, and having not seen the thing for three months, I came back home to find some wear on the image.

The 4:3 image ratio is now dully burnt into the screen. If you see a widescreen image with a single light color, like say, a shot of the sky, it can actually be pretty dramatic.

So I'm going to ask a fairly hopeless question. Is there anything that can be done to reverse the effect, or at the very least, stagger its progress? We've had the damn thing for less than 12 months, and at this rate, the screen will be a single brown blur before year three.

if your parents burn-in is coming from watching a lot of 4:3 content unstretched, have them watch 4:3 content stretched, so it fills the whole widescreen frame. over time this should reduce the appearrance of the burn-in.

My parents bought a 50" phillips plasma around July last summer. In that time, it's receieved a pretty substantial amount of use on their part, and having not seen the thing for three months, I came back home to find some wear on the image.

The 4:3 image ratio is now dully burnt into the screen. If you see a widescreen image with a single light color, like say, a shot of the sky, it can actually be pretty dramatic.

So I'm going to ask a fairly hopeless question. Is there anything that can be done to reverse the effect, or at the very least, stagger its progress? We've had the damn thing for less than 12 months, and at this rate, the screen will be a single brown blur before year three.

Definitely have them stretch the image so it covers the whole screen. Bring down all settings ala brightness, contrast etc to 50% and try that. At this point, over time it should go back to normal but you never know.

With just under six months of use, can we come to any kind of consensus as to whether or not this effect is permanent?

You should be able to find out fairly quickly by playing content that fills the whole screen and leaving it to run. MY guess would be that part of it is permanent and part of it is residual that will go away if you play wide screen content for a extended period of time.

the phosphors are worn unevenly, you can even out the effect some by making sure the image you're watching covers the whole screen, but it's going to take time.

this site essentially shills its own product, but it does explain why it occurs, and what you can do to address the issue once it has occurred: http://www.plasmasaver.com/burnin.html, one option is to buy their dvd which apparently has a negative image of the 4:3 screen so you can burn-in the sides to even out the wear on the phosphors. personally i'd just watch a lot of content that covers the whole screen rather than trying to use a pattern to even out the burn.

maybe you could go to the retailer and bitch, but burn-in is never covered. you might get lucky by being persistant.

With just under six months of use, can we come to any kind of consensus as to whether or not this effect is permanent?

You should be able to find out fairly quickly by playing content that fills the whole screen and leaving it to run. MY guess would be that part of it is permanent and part of it is residual that will go away if you play wide screen content for a extended period of time.

What really concerns me is, given what you've seen already, how long is going to be before white is no longer white?